


System Call

by apothothesis (valoirs)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transistor, Experimental, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 01:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12288654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valoirs/pseuds/apothothesis
Summary: "Keith... We're not gonna get away with this, are we?"There are only two things you know right now about this situation: that you aren't you, not exactly, and Keith is alive.





	System Call

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [[link]](https://v-0-3.tumblr.com/post/165898104202/i-love-you-so-much-keith-you-know-that-right) and [[link]](http://leaveeyes.tumblr.com/post/165779145322/hey-keith-we-arent-going-to-make-it-out-of-this), by Tumblr users v-0-3 and leaveeyes respectively. I made the incredibly responsible decision of buying the game and playing the entire thing in a single sitting this past Sunday.
> 
> A lot of liberties taken. Please note there are potential spoilers for Transistor, if you're interested in playing the game.

 

 

"Keith... We're not gonna get away with this, are we?"

There are only two things you know right now about this situation: that you aren't you, not exactly, and Keith is alive.

The Transistor, they'd called it. One moment you were watching Lotor fling it blade-first in Keith's direction, and the next, you'd stepped in, shoving Keith aside. You've never known heartbreak, but the worst of the situation had been the way it had shone in Keith's horrified expression, how his eyes had widened enough for you to see the way his sclera glinted in the dim light. You aren't  _you_  anymore, not exactly. It's a shapeless, shifting world here, with golden plains and faint impressions of grass underneath your feet.

There's no sense to be made from it; instead, you look to where the sky should be, and you see Keith. You see yourself, too, or what used to be you: a body slumped against a wall, rivulets of blood trailing from the wound that seats the Transistor's blade. It's a new perspective to see everything, surveying what you know as reality from this second plane. This must be the confines of the Transistor.

This is where you are now, and you can't think of a single way you might leave.

But what's important now is that Keith is alive. He's living and breathing, even if he's still watching you with pained eyes, half-reaching out with his hands like he has no idea what to do with them. He'd followed the sound of your voice. Now all you want is to hear his.

"Hey... Say something, will you?" you try, and you watch as Keith's lips move and no sound escapes. They'd taken something from him too; his voice, you suppose, because maybe, to them, it's his most critical feature. What's a pilot without a plane? A swordsman without a sword?

A singer without his voice?

At least your own words are reaching him. You're quick to go for damage control. There's too much that you don't know, but  _they_  know where you both are, and neither of you are safe here. "Hey, you'll be all right, okay?" you say, because you can't touch him the way you used to anymore, but your voice can still reach him. What a pair you both make now. "They took something from you, but maybe we can still get it back. As for me, I don't really know, but. It'll work out, all right? Stay with me, Keith."

You're not really in the best state of mind either, no matter how much you're trying to hold on. But either way, the words click; Keith moves, finally, gloved fingers grasping the hilt of the Transistor. He grunts as he pulls it free from your old body. Without anything plugging the wound, you both watch as blood hits the ground with sickening splatters. Keith props the Transistor gingerly against the wall—you feel it when the hilt makes contact, a quiet but encompassing reverberation.

For a moment, you have no idea what he's doing, but then he reaches out toward the body and touches the tips of his fingers to the face that you'd grown used to seeing everyday in the mirror. His hands trace up, shaking, sweeping a familiar white forelock away from closed eyelids. His breath, when he finally releases it, emerges as a shaky exhale.

"Yeah," you say, for lack of anything better. "That's...not me anymore, I guess. I'm..." _Monster_ is the wrong word. You're integrated into the Transistor now, and you have no idea how that works, but it'd be like calling a machine a monster when the worst it's done is get used like a tool as intended.  _Different_ might be a little more accurate. Different the same way Cloudbank changes so often that nothing is different.

You know a little better now how others might've seen you and Keith, if the time you had spent together had ever been in public spaces. It hurts to watch how he shifts the body slightly so that it's resting more comfortably against the wall. His hands are firm, careful, and there's something inexplicably human in the wetness of his eyes. But Keith's not crying. You're a little grateful for that.

He steps away from the body to kneel in front of you—in front of the Transistor. With his wrist, he wipes a few flecks of blood off the blade, then presses his forehead against the glowing metal, eyes fluttering shut. The lit circuitry ignites cold hues against the sharpness of his face, casting shadows and highlights. He's close enough that you can read his lips.

_You're still you._

"...Yeah," you say softly, "I guess maybe I still am."

Keith smiles a little at that, and it's a sight for sore eyes.

"Right, then. We should go. We can't stay here."

There's a soft snort as Keith gets to his feet, and he makes a point of showing you the halfhearted way he rolls his eyes as if to say  _is anywhere safe right now?_  You suppose there really isn't.

There's an unfathomable expression on his face as he gently eases your jacket from the body and dons it in a single swift motion. It's too big for him, the sleeves and shoulders much broader than what he needs. You've always liked him in shirts that fit him well, but this is a good look on him too. It's just as well; he was dressed to perform earlier. He'd never liked the stiffness of pressed button-up shirts, so they'd let him get away with his own choice of clothes. It might've been warm enough for a concert, but out in this autumn chill, one of many products of majority vote in Cloudbank, it makes sense he'd be cold.

"Taking this one too? You didn't give back the other jacket you stole, you know." There's a smile in your voice.

Keith doesn't answer, but he tugs up the collar of your jacket and nestles his nose against it for a split second before he moves to heft up the Transistor. You go with the motion, wincing on Keith's behalf. It's by no means light, and you can see the tension in his arm as he carefully grasps the handle and starts walking, blade trailing behind him against the ground.

It feels like you're being—well, hauled in that direction, like your body is picking up every bump and crevice in the ground as your feet scrape against the smooth pavement. The feeling would be almost headache-inducing if you weren't so focused on watching out for your surroundings. Maybe this time you're the one who saved Keith, but the reality is that Keith's saved you more times than you can count, and more times than you will ever know. The certainty is a blazing warmth where your chest would be if you still had one.

"We could skip this town," you tell him, and there's no hiding the wistfulness in your voice. "You and me. Just the two of us. You've never gone beyond the outskirts, have you? I haven't either. I don't know what's out there, but it could be nice to see."

Keith stills, and it's the only indication he's heard you. But then you can feel the way his fingers tighten around the Transistor's handle, and he walks forward decisively. There's a hum trailing from his closed mouth as he moves, and you watch sparks fly as the Transistor leaves a fast-fading, scintillating trail in his wake, a framework of ignited circuits pulsing with color. It's pretty, but not nearly half as pretty as the sound of Keith's voice, even if he can't shape words with it right now.

You know this tune by heart—a quiet, nostalgic instrumental Keith had penned down onto lined paper, the notes spread messily because he was too lazy to draw proper staff lines. He'd strummed the opening chords to it for you in the heat of his apartment, his back warm against your shoulder where he was leaning against you. You'd felt every shift of his breath, the graceful motion of his arm as he'd plucked notes. It wasn't a song he'd opted to give words to.  _Hey,_ he'd said instead, _I can let it speak for itself, can't I,_ and his laugh was a light, evolving thing, the kind you could record and replay on loop and never get tired of.

 _Give it a name at least,_  you'd said teasingly, and he'd shrugged.

He'd brought you to the drum set of his apartment's tiny studio, where you'd methodically tested beats. There's something about hearing this song again—of hearing something you'd created together—that makes everything ache. You'd watched Keith record everything and mix it all himself in the end, even with all the professional producers clamoring to work with him. _Yeah, it's not for them_ , he'd told you, and he'd given you the finished MP3 on a USB drive. There are only two copies in Cloudbank.

"'Old Friends', huh?" you say, and the smooth notes of his humming break just long enough for you to hear Keith make a satisfied noise. "Even now, you're still thinking about how I'm doing? You've gotta take care of yourself, too."

He stops by at a terminal—one of the OVC machines set up for polling. Underneath the selections is a section for leaving a comment. Keith's gaze flits dismissively over the poll options, and he taps his way straight to the comment section.

"They were planning to put together another sector, huh? Name options... Altea, Daibaazal, Arus, Olkarion... All of them are sounding pretty abstr—wait, Keith, what..."

Keith's fingers fly over the on-screen keyboard.

_youre the one who got stabbed here. of course im thinking about how youre doing._

He backspaces.

_i cant sing anymore but if youve got a request i wanna hear it._

You laugh. It's a quiet, affectionate little thing. Keith stands up all the straighter for it, posture perfect, a throwback to the times you'd told him to stop slouching if he wanted to sing more powerfully. It feels like your heart is aching. "Whatever you want," you say, "whatever you wanna sing."

_thats not specific at all._

But Keith is smiling, and he backspaces the message again, erasing it, before he closes the poll and steps away from the terminal. Then he's off again at a brisk pace, dragging the Transistor with him.

"I think I know where we are," you tell him, and he doesn't stop walking, but you can see the way his shoulders relax even while he's on alert. "Should be an archway around here…"

You see it up ahead the same time Keith does—a sealed-off entryway near one of the buildings, locked by administrators. Keith stops for a moment to examine the Transistor, checking the small interface on one side of the blade.

"Two functions on here, huh? That one's labeled Break… Looks like the second is labeled Fault."

Keith frowns, but there isn't time to dwell on it any further. There are blank white columns on spots where there shouldn't be any, and lurking near one is something you don't know what to call other than a robot with multi-pronged legs, something entirely alien.

 _The Process_ , Lotor had called it, right before he'd stabbed you at point-blank range.

Eerily, its eyes are reminiscent of the design on the Transistor's blade, and you try not to think too hard about the implications. Before you can say anything, Keith is a flurry of action—a quick sprint and leap forward, the Transistor cleaving into the middle of the Process with a vindictive satisfaction. At the point of impact, a series of cracks splinters outwards to the edges of the Process' frame, and it breaks, disintegrating on the spot, just as the Transistor function might imply. To anyone else, it might look like a clean kill, but you can read the new, low-simmering tension in his body language for what it is.

"Easy there, Keith," you murmur placatingly, "patience yields focus." You say it the same way you soothe him when he can't get a piece of lyrics down right, or when the notes for a song come together wrong and he's shredding his own work.

Keith whirls, but when his gaze falls on the Transistor again, on you, his eyes are soft. He takes a breath, inhaling and exhaling, mouthing the words as well. _Patience yields focus._

You watch him go through two iterations of it. It's bizarre to see him wordless like this, his frustration manifesting not as a vocal outburst but in the tension of his body language. He can handle himself just fine and reel in his temper, but the stress of the situation is far beyond anything either of you have ever dealt with. "You okay?" you ask, and you continue only when he gives you a stiff nod. "All right. Let's go, I think we can use this function to get through that sealed point. The Process really messed things up, didn't it?"

On any other day, the sealed points could have warded off full-fledged assault rifle bullets, but Keith slashes the panel with a single stroke and the pathway clears. He scales the stairway before him two steps at a time with a dangerous, loping grace, the Transistor piercing the darkness with its synthetic glow. When you both finally arrive at the top, it's the sight of the sprawling metropolis of Cloudbank that greets you where you both stand on the high bridge, lights gleaming in the distance. It's a beautiful city, one that doesn't sleep, and the endless stretch of infrastructure is something you've both considered home.

It would still be, if not for this mess. If not for the Process outbreak overtaking the entire city.

"Looks like we really are on the outskirts… We need to get away from here. You see it, don't you? The Empty Set?" you say.

A wisp of a sigh escapes Keith's lips. He lifts a hand and presses two fingers to his throat, straining. All that emerges is a small, frustrated sound—it sounds just like him still, with all the words stolen. But he doesn't pause long enough to let you say anything else. He heads down the length of the bridge at a quick jog, the Transistor drawing sparks against the ground as he drags it behind him, and you both make your way down a separate flight of stairs into the Promenade. It should be busy, as it usually is, but the entire street is deserted save a few Processes blasting away at the wall of a building.

"We should name these things, shouldn't we. Instead of just calling them Processes?"

Keith makes a face. Then he mouths something you know you shouldn't repeat.

"Okay, maybe something less, uh… Let's just call them Creeps." The laugh slips into your voice anyway. "All right, you got this? Hey, there's another function the Transistor has—let's test this, too."

 _Another function_ turns out to be an option on the Transistor's small interface that only reads _Turn_. Sure enough, Keith triggers it, and you watch as your surroundings flare, the backdrop washing out into black and turquoise hues, time frozen in a single moment. Keith works off his instincts alone, but it's easy to see he's a natural in the way he understands the Transistor, like he was meant for this, a certain unyielding stubbornness working its way into the furrow of his brow. Nothing changes as he plots out a sequence of the functions. There's immunity here in this—you know now, from the looks of it, that nothing can touch you both in this mode as you watch Keith calculate trajectories and paths, canceling one path to try another, plotting from point to point.

Then he lets go, color washes back into the world, and he slams the Transistor into the first of the Creeps before cleaving the rest with a blast of purple light, all in a fraction of a second.

"You got them," you say, and the pride in your voice is enough that he smiles again, his gloved fingers shifting gently against the handle of the Transistor. He traces a finger across the lit circuitry on the blade, and it feels just like the last time he touched a hand to your cheek, feather-light.

Keith makes his way down the Promenade, weaving between white pillars spawned by the Process outbreak. But at the end of the block, it must be that you've made some kind of noise, because he stops again, setting the Transistor to rest the tip against the ground, surveying worriedly.

"No, it's just—I'm sorry, Keith." If you could, you'd gesture to the wall, where you can see a massive promotional poster for what would have been Keith's upcoming performance. He's an image of grace there, head tilted back slightly, eyes closed, hair framing his face gracefully, a figure in red and gold. The colors suit him—it's only fitting for someone who'd taken on _Red_ as his stage name. You'd met him knowing only that identity once. Months later, he'd taken you aside after a show and asked you to call him _Keith_.

He makes a quizzical noise at your apology, and if you had hands, you'd wring them.

"You've guessed already, but they took your voice. I couldn't stop them. I'm so sorry. I just…"

With a breath, he hoists the Transistor up, cradling it close. You think maybe you'd feel it the way you'd feel any embrace of his—the warmth of his body seeping against you, his scent, the sensation of his hair brushing against your face—but everything's muted, nerves dialed down to only faint impressions. You marshal your resolve, anything to look like the poised man you're supposed to be. He'd told you once that you didn't need to pretend around him, but right now, you don't know what else to do.

"Let's go," you say, firmly.

For a few seconds, Keith doesn't move. Maybe you've misstepped; maybe it was the wrong thing to say.

But then he pivots on a heel and turns, taking you both further down the Promenade at another jog. There's a courtyard near here that connects to the expressway. It would be a clear path to escape if not for the massive Process that emerges near the corner, a hulking heap of metal with a lone, swiveling, red eye. You should be used to this by now, especially with the way the buildings around you coming apart, processing into white heaps of blank columns. Everything normalized, reset, gone back to the beginning. Everything initialized back to zero.

Keith hums, and it breaks you out of your cyclical panic. Then he steadies his grip, readying himself, and the world goes colorless again, a simplified slate of colors. He leverages the Transistor's Turn function with an economical grace, something clean-cut that clashes with the disarray of his hair and clothes. Maybe in another life he'd really been a fighter, if he could muster so much resolve in this one. He swivels around the Process with a clean backstab, then disintegrates it with another blast of purple light.

"Think a purple laser suits me, if that's the function the Transistor got out of me?"

Keith mouths something, but you miss it, and he doesn't bother to try again. The courtyard goes still now, devoid of life save the two of you, and in your case, you're not even sure if what you are constitutes being alive. But you're here, and Keith's here, and maybe that's really all that matters. What would it be like now if you hadn't stepped in the way in time? If the Transistor had stricken true and processed Keith? Maybe in another reality, that exact event could have happened.

Maybe in another reality, Keith's dead now, completely processed, and maybe there you don't know what to do with yourself either.

It's not a thought you enjoy entertaining. But then, one second, you're listening to another of Keith's hums, like an afterthought. The next, you hear his hiss of pain—and then you're seeing red. If you weren't so helpless, if you weren't so _useless_ —

The Process firing on Keith swivels, tracking his motion as he lurches to the side and rolls, the Transistor banging against the ground. It feels like your mind is being rattled against bars, but it's better than focusing again and again on the small patch of blood seeping through Keith's shirt on the side, staining the threads of your jacket. You couldn't care less about that jacket getting dirty. "Steady, Keith," you say, with all the calm you don't have. "You can take this jerk out. You know that. _I_ know that."

Keith makes a noise that could be a laugh, and he goes in for the kill again, working quickly, a figure of brute speed. Three Turns, and that's all it takes—the Process goes down, disintegrating as it should, the metal of its body breaking apart like dust. He pauses to catch his breath.

"Hey, take your time. You're gonna be okay. We just need to get to the expressway in that direction, all right? We can get a ride there, whenever you're ready. But you're bleeding."

It's about all you can do to murmur platitudes. You can't reach out to him, you can't shred your jacket for makeshift bandages, you can't patch him up. The only thing you have going for you is your voice where he lacks his, and you'll just have to make it work. This time you're the one humming softly, your voice ragged, testing out the melody of the song you had both come up with together.

And if it's any consolation, it energizes Keith just a bit. You can see it in the way he straightens, the way he takes careful, purposeful steps again. He doesn't stop to bandage his cut, but the bleeding isn't spreading, and you let yourself leave it at that. You watch him the entire time as the two of you head off, Keith's footsteps reverberating in empty spaces, bouncing off the walls of the buildings you pass. You can see the river below, glittering against the neon city lights. There are a few motorcycles parked on the side, some being processed, their smooth curves giving way to sharp white edges, blank and sterile like hospital walls.

And then a body.

You forget to breathe. For several seconds, it looks like Keith has forgotten, too. Then he steps over and kneels beside the young woman.  You recognize her dark skin and her long white hair, strewn like curtains around her. You've studied her face countless times in the moments you stole away searching for missing persons of notice. One of the later disappearances, right after Matt and Katie Holt. You have a sinking feeling that you'll be finding them, and all the others, soon.

The Transistor hums, scanning: _ALLURA. DISPOSITION: DIPLOMATIC. PROCESSED: 79%._

"Hello, Allura," you say in Keith's stead, surveying Allura's frozen expression of agony as the edges of her body flicker, a few pieces dissolving away in a series of white squares. You know her as one of the principal activists in the city trying to fight for the minorities that could never push a winning vote through. "What happened to you?"

Her fingers, loosely curled, twitch slightly. Next to the Transistor, Keith's expression is one of open, muted horror. "I'm quite…all…right," Allura says, an audible hitch in her breath. "If I just…"

She stills. The Transistor flickers, and you see it then: a holographic cube floating above Allura's body, the Transistor pulling away her soul and personality in lines and lines of code, compartmentalizing them, condensing the entirety of her life in bytes of data. You feel sick suddenly, watching her reduced to ones and zeroes, bit by bit. "Come with us," you tell her and the holographic, cubic trace that's all that remains of her. You can hear her murmur as Keith lifts the Transistor and absorbs her trace with it, a quiet line of static.

"So it's not just Lotor. Did you know him personally? No… I see. Then there's a whole group behind this, and it's just that he's at the helm of it. You started looking into that? There was…suspicious activity among some of the minority groups? You think he hid among them? But if he has administrative power somehow…" You trail off, easing into silence. The more you learn, the less you seem to know. Allura goes quiet in the Transistor and that's about all you get to learn from her for now. To your relief, there's a new function on the Transistor interface, something Keith can use. _Alloc_ , the text reads.

Keith's silent as he steps away from Allura's body, and instead of heading over to the bikes, he's taking slow steps to another OVC Terminal at the corner, quietly skipping through the trending news topics and tapping his way to the comments section of a random article. He pauses for a split second before he starts typing, his fingers gingerly pressing against the on-screen keys.

_is this whats gonna happen to ur body too?_

"I won't lie to you, Keith," you sigh. "I think… It'll probably get processed, too. The same way. There's nothing to stop the Process from doing it, is there? And we can't go back there. It's too dangerous—they already know we were there. They even set traps for us."

 _but if theres no place for you to go back t_ —

He backspaces furiously, fingernails clicking against the screen.

_We'll figure out a way. There has to be something. You're going to be okay. I'll bring you back._

He backspaces again, typing carefully, methodically.

_As many times as it takes._

And before you can respond, he steps up to one of the bikes—red, entirely fitting for him—and fishes discarded keys from the ground. Keith loads the Transistor on the side of the seat, then swings a leg over to position himself.

"You did it," you murmur, not trusting yourself to say anything else. "Come on. East 64 onramp—after five blocks, it's the second right. Don't turn left. We'll be out of here soon, Keith."

You already have a sinking suspicion that you're wrong.

The engine revs, and Keith speeds down the expressway, one hand on the handlebar, the other clutching the Transistor, and you can feel the coldness of his fingers where they've been bitten by the night chill. You watch the wind rustle the dark strands of his hair and the flutter of your jacket where it's curled around the sharp cut of his frame. He keeps the collar pulled up again and presses a brief nuzzle into the shoulder of the cloth, then straightens to focus his attention back on the road. It's entirely deserted once again, an absolute abnormality for East 64, which would be crowded with other bikes at this hour. Keith accelerates to nauseating speeds, before slowing just enough to make a sharp left that nearly unseats him.

The entire time, his hand doesn't let go of the Transistor—the entire time, he doesn't let go of you.

"Hi," you say, breathless, torn and grateful and aching all in the same breath. "You turned left. Thought we were gonna skip town."

Keith doesn't glance back, but he tilts his head fractionally in a nod.

"We're going back there?"

He twists the throttle, accelerating, leaving no room for anymore doubts.

You're at a crossroads—you have a chance, now, to make one last-ditch effort. Would it be so selfish to send him away from Cloudbank, away from here, even without his voice, if it means keeping him away from all this? If it means keeping him alive?

No. It's too late for any of that. He's already involved, isn't he?

"You've met these things," you try, and your voice emerges placidly enough, masking everything you're trying desperately not to say. "They don't have a sense of humor. They'll track you down, eliminate you, and take whatever's left of me. Whatever's left of the Transistor. Back to Lotor, and whatever the organization he's heading is."

Over the sound of the engine, you can't hear if Keith makes any noise, if there's a change in his breathing, _anything_.

"Keith, if I don't make it out of here," you say, "I want you to—"

Keith's grip clenches around the Transistor's handle with bruising intensity.

You don't say anything more after that.

**Author's Note:**

> \- **Break()**  
>  **SUBJECT:** KEITH "RED" KOGANE  
>  **AGE:** 24  
>  **GENDER:** M  
>  **SELECTIONS:** Music, Aeronautics.  
>  **REASONS CITED:** Declined.  
>  **TRACE:** Intact.  
>  **BACKGROUND:** Ranked in the top percentile of Cloudbank's contemporary performing artists for several years, Keith demonstrated interest in aeronautics at a young age, enrolling in the Garrison for intensive study. For personal reasons, he withdrew from the Garrison to pursue a music discipline at Traverson Hall's nascent arts program. He has remained infamously elusive even long after his initial rise to prominence, citing that his work would speak for itself, without the influence of impressions given by personal anecdotes, interests, or motivations.
> 
> \- **Fault()**  
>  **SUBJECT:** SUBJECT NOT FOUND  
>  **AGE:** ??  
>  **GENDER:** ??  
>  **SELECTIONS:** Declined.  
>  **REASONS CITED:** Declined.  
>  **TRACE:** Non-recoverable.  
>  **BACKGROUND:** Error: Subject background data corrupted during integration. Reason: Unknown.


End file.
